


Chase away your Nightmares

by Bythia



Series: Just Write: Trope-Bingo 2020 [13]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Episode: s01e06 Countrycide, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:34:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26727514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bythia/pseuds/Bythia
Summary: Ianto dreads going to sleep after his close encounter with the cannibals, but Jack decides to help him chase away the nightmares.
Relationships: Jack Harkness & Ianto Jones
Series: Just Write: Trope-Bingo 2020 [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1897216
Kudos: 24
Collections: Just Write! Trope Bingo





	Chase away your Nightmares

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes places in the same 'verse as "Leave behind your Ghosts", so the episode Cyberwoman didn't occur like in canon. I had not planned to make a series out of this idea, but here we are. I have a couple of ideas for other scenes between Jack and Ianto, but no idea if and when I'll write those down. 
> 
> **Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the characters or anything of this world. I just borrowed them to play a little bit, and I don't make money with the stories I borrowed them for. But the words are mine, so please don't copy them to use them as your own.
> 
> Have fun,  
> Bythia

Ianto knew that Jack had been watching him work for almost half an hour, but he did not react to it. He was tired and exhausted, but he knew it would be a bad idea to even think about getting rest because then all the horror of their two days in the Brecon Beacons would well up in him and he had no idea at all how he could push it away. He still felt the blade on his throat, felt the hands of this man on his body and saw the severed body parts waiting to be eaten whenever he closed his eyes.

Jack had given him two days off after they had come back to Cardiff late in the last afternoon, but Ianto had just ignored it after a sleepless night in his apartment. Gwen was home for the next couple of days because of her being shot, and though Ianto had been the most severely hurt besides her, at least he had only been beaten down. Ianto saw no reason why he could not be in the Hub, cleaning up whatever needed to be cleaned, taking care of the paperwork and provide monitoring in case something happened and needed Jack, Owen and Tosh all outside of the Hub. There had been nothing in his apartment to distract him from the memories of the last two days, so he had come into the Hub this morning and had stubbornly stayed even after Owen and Tosh had gone home for the day.

"You need rest," Jack said quietly.

Ianto sighed without stopping in his task to gather the trash from the various workstations. "No chance for that."

"You haven't slept last night at all, have you?"

Ianto shrugged. "I tried, but…"

"Come on."

Jack was suddenly right beside him and took the garbage bag out of his hand, letting it drop where they stood. He put his hands on Ianto's shoulders and pushed him softly to the stairs.

"Where are we going?" Ianto asked confused.

"My bunker. I'm not letting you climb down the ladder with your injuries."

"It's really not that bad," Ianto protested.

"Owen had other things to say about that. You need rest and sleep, I won't let you work until you collapse."

Ianto frowned. He knew it would not be long until he reached such a point because the last time he had slept had been in the night before they had driven into the Brecon Beacons, but that did not mean he was happy with being manhandled. And yet, he was too exhausted to protest. "And why are we going to your bunker for that?"

"There is a perfectly fine bed in my bunker and to not sleep alone will probably help. Both of us. I haven't slept much last night either."

"You want us to share a bed?" Ianto could not help but stiffen slightly and he knew he sounded wary.

"Just to sleep," Jack muttered while opening the secret door that led from the room right under the main room of the Hub to the bunker. 

Ianto had figured out where the door was shortly after the small funeral Jack had organized for Lisa, but he had never managed to remember how the door could be opened because he had been to out of it when Jack had bought him here last on the day Ianto had revealed the secrete he had brought with him from London. This time, he again did not see what Jack did to open the door and he was too tired to even ask about it, no matter how much he was dreading the actual sleep.

"I would never do anything you haven't invited me to do," Jack continued quietly after closing the door.

"That's not the problem," Ianto whispered and hoped that Jack would not ask about it, because he just did not want to talk about it.

Jack hummed but said nothing else. He prodded Ianto to the bed and helped him out of his trousers and shirt, which was greatly appreciate because Ianto's range of movement had become more restricted the longer he had kept working. Owen had warned him about that when Ianto had not stopped working through the whole day, but he had just ignored it. To sit down would have given him time to think and remember, so he had just not sat down the whole day.

"I have medication here that could help you sleep and that you can take with the painkillers Owen gave you," Jack said.

Ianto shook his head. "Won't keep the nightmares away."

He did not even try to hide that he was watching Jack, while he got rid of most of his own clothes before helping Ianto to lay down on his back.

"You did take the pain meds, right?"

Ianto rolled his eyes. "Yes. Pretty sure I wouldn't have been able to move at all if I hadn't taken them. He was very thorough in tenderizing the meat."

Jack growled quietly. "I should have killed him."

"People will want to have answers," Ianto muttered. "It's better that they are still alive, although I appreciate the thought. It will be hard for the region once this hits the news. Tosh helped to hold it back today so that the police could do their work."

"I had wondered why I hadn't seen anything about it."

"It will come out soon enough. - We see so much every day here … why is it easier to shut out any given encounter with an alien than this?"

"Because it's a reminder that we are part of a fairly cruel and violent species. It's not as easy to step aside from it if it's a reminder what kind of abyss can be found in ourself," Jack replied. He laid down beside Ianto, careful not to shake up the bed too much and pulled the blanket over them both. "It's a reminder that we don't need to look beyond Earth to find the monsters."

Ianto sighed. "They have done this for decades. Tosh ran a search and … It's been at least a hundred years since people were going missing every ten years or so in this region. And that's what they said, right? That they have their harvest every ten years? How has no one noticed this before?"

"Hart to track where exactly a person went missing if they are on the road. Ten years ago not many people had a cellphone and there would have been no reception there anyway. It's gotten easier to track their movement this year because now there is not a lot them who don't have cellphones. - There won't be any sleep if you keep your eyes open."

"I can't close my eyes," Ianto said, staring at the ceiling. "I still feel the blade on my throat all the time and … I see his grinning face whenever I close my eyes even briefly."

Jack shuffled closer and put an arm around Ianto’s waist, carefully avoiding his bruises. "You won't be able to stay awake forever. Try to sleep. I'm here to wake you up if the nightmares come, but I really hope it will help you to not be alone. It helps me most of the time."

When Ianto sighed and only shook his head, Jack started to quietly talk about a world far away and far in the future. Ianto listened, wondering if Jack was telling a fairy tale or if he was talking about his own life. And though Ianto was still convinced he would not be able to sleep, Jack's voice lured him into a kind of security that let his eyes drop close after a while until sleep overtook him.

  
  


Ianto lay on his side, his head on Jack's shoulder and all of his body aching when he woke up. He felt much more rested than he had expected and he could not remember any nightmares. Ianto had not believed Jack when he had told him to not be alone would help against the nightmares. But then, he had no experience with it because before Canary Wharf he had seldom had any nightmares.

"Thank you," Ianto muttered without moving.

"You are most welcome," Jack said, slightly chuckling. "It was a help for me, too. - I woke you two times when you started to get agitated, but I'm not sure you remember this.

Ianto shook his head. "I don't remember any nightmares." It was a relief for the moment, but he knew that they would come the next time he tried to sleep. He would not be able to run away from them forever and he would neither be able to let Jack chase them away every time.

"That was the plan," Jack replied. "How are the bruises fairing."

"Not sure if I want to move and find out."

"We can stay as we are for a little while. We should probably even sleep a couple of hours more, it's still the middle of the night."

"Promise me you'll never again try to use camping as a team-building exercise!" Ianto demanded.

"Yeah." He could hear Jack's grin. "And we better won't let Gwen be in charge of such a thing either."

Ianto sighed deeply. "She didn't know." 

He should have known that the day would end in some kind of catastrophe after Gwen had started with this silly game asking who they had kissed last. It had been a shock when Owen had revealed with a satisfied grin that he had kissed Gwen and the look on her face had been confirmation enough that it had really happened. Ianto had refused to answer, and instead, he had stood up and gone into the forest. The last he had heard of that conversation was Jack admonishing the others and reminding them that Ianto had lost his fiancé in Canary Wharf before he had stumbled over the corpse in the woods.

It would not have hurt as much if Ianto would have been able to truthfully tell them that he had kissed Lisa last. But with the revelation that Lisa had died in London and that he had been fooled by the technology that had used her body, had also come the realization that he had cared for and kissed the thing that had taken over her body. He hated himself for that and he had not been able to tell the lie to have last kissed Lisa. The others knew nothing about the Cyberman he had brought into their Hub because Jack had never told them and Ianto was thankful for that. They would not understand and he felt unable to face their disapproval and distrust over it.

"I'm still sorry she brought it up," Jack said. "And you have to be prepared for Tosh and Gwen to be very careful with you."

"That's the last thing I want," Ianto muttered.

"They are worried about you."

Ianto huffed. "It won't make it any better to be reminded of Lisa every time I speak with them."

"Tell them that and hopefully, that will keep them from being overwhelming. I only told them that you lost your fiancé in the Battle of Canary Wharf, nothing more. They don't even know her name, though I'm pretty sure it would be no hardship for Tosh to get this information. You don't have to talk with them about Lisa."

"I … I'm very grateful that you never told them that I had brought her here," Ianto muttered.

"There was no need for that. This is something that will remain between you and me. - I have a question but you don't have to answer if you don't want to do it, okay?"

Ianto nodded slowly.

"You … hesitated when I suggested we share a bed to sleep and when I worried you had misunderstood my intention, you said it was not that. So, what did let you hesitate?"

Ianto bit on his lip. He had hoped Jack would just forget about that, but then again he was very attentive about everything Ianto said and did since he had revealed the existence of the Cyberman. Ianto knew that Jack was worried about him and he was aware enough of himself to acknowledge the necessity of it. There had been a moment two nights ago after Tosh had fled and Ianto had been alone with the group of cannibals when he had been okay with being killed in that village.

"You never stopped flirting with me, even after you didn't need it anymore to distract me. I thought you would maybe use it to distract yourself, but if you are uncomfortable…"

"No," Ianto interrupted him quietly. "It is … the complete opposite of that." 

He was too comfortable in his flirting with Jack, much too comfortable with the thought of making more out of this flirt and he felt guilty over it because even if he could remember that Lisa had died in London it was just little more than eight months that she had lost her, and not even two months since Jack had destroyed his illusion about saving her.

"Ah. - I understand."

"Do you?" Ianto asked incredulously.

Jack sighed. "I have lived on this planet for nearly 140 years now. I have met a lot of people in this time, have found friends in many, have fallen in love with some and lost every single one of them in the end. Not once was the grief about such a loss the same as ever before. There is nothing wrong with feeling attracted by someone even if you still grieve for Lisa."

"I feel like I would betray her."

"No." Jack shook his head. "You aren't betraying her with these kinds of emotions. And you wouldn't even betray her if you slept with me or someone else. Because she is gone and I'm sure she wouldn't want you to draw in your grief."

"So, you think this is normal?"

Jack sighed. "There is nothing normal about grief. I have lost lovers and haven't felt any kind of sexual attraction for month or years. And other times I lost lovers and the only comfort I could find was in the beds of others. I have learned to go with the flow, to trust the things I'm feeling."

Ianto took a deep unsteady breath, unsure what he should say to that.

"I'm here if you ever decide that you want to do something about it," Jack said.

Ianto frowned. "Just like that?"

Jack laughed slightly. "If we had met in other circumstances I would have seduced you a long time ago!" His laughter died and Ianto felt fingers softly combing through his hair. "But I've had enough time to learn about the grief of others, too. I could see the hurt in your eyes every time you were flirting with me in the beginning."

Ianto sighed silently, unsure if he should apologize again. When he had come back to Cardiff he had tried to distract Jack and with the things he had learned about him from One, to flirt with him had seemed the best way to do so. Ianto had learned since then that there was a lot more depth and compassion in Jack than One had known or had wanted to recognize.

"It's changed in the last couple of weeks," Jack continued quietly. "I think because you were finally able to let go of her a little bit."

"Maybe," Ianto agreed hesitantly. He did not feel any better, but then he was probably not the right person to evaluate himself in that.

"I'm here," Jack repeated. "For whatever you need. Whatever you want."

** The End **

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Fill for the "Bed Sharing" square of my Bingo Card.


End file.
